The girl who isn't April
by Nellasbokplanet
Summary: Set directly after the Kraang Conspiracy. Something lived. Something that isn't April...
1. The girl who isn't April

**AN: this will probably end as a oneshot, unless a lot of people want to see it followed and I find the extra time to write. A little what if regarding the April clones from The Kraang Conspiracy**

* * *

The redheaded girl walking along the street looks as if she's been run over by a truck. Her clothes had been white not too long ago, but now they are ripped and smudged, covered in a black goo that drips on the pavement around her. She has lost her white headband, and bruises mingle with the freckles on her cheeks.

Her memories tell her her name is April O'Neil, but her memory tells her a lot of things. Images of a huge, manlike bat float up every now and then, and she knows they should make her upset. The memory of her sure was. But no matter how much she tries, she can't feel distressed, or even concerned.

Because she isn't April O'Neil.

It's strange, having all those memories but knowing only the last few hours of them truly belong to _her._ Seeing her sisters being slaughtered, seeing those she asked for help run off, not even looking at her a second time. Thinking she was dead, just like everything else she has ever known.

Those are her real memories. They are _hers_.

And no matter how much they make her hurt inside, she wouldn't give them up for all in the world.

The girl who isn't April doesn't know where to go or what to do. She knows the layout of New York, all the little hideouts April and the turtles have ever used, but what good does that do her? It's not like _she_ can go there, not like _she _knows anyone to ask for help, anyone to beg for mercy, a place to sleep, or even just a mouthful of food. She has April's whole life inside her head, and she can't even use it.

She has a funny feeling inside, and she's spent the last half an hour trying to put a name on it. It's like she's boiling, like her stomach is bubbling, sending hot acid into her head.

It's the fourth actual emotion she has ever felt.

The first one was confusion. The glowing liquid that had encased her for all her existence was flushed away, leaving her alone in a tube, trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't. Realising the Kraang were her enemy, because she is April, and April hates the Kraang, and then realising they weren't, because she _isn't _April.

The second feeling was relief. She saw four green creatures running towards her, and knew from deep within her that _they were her friends_. They could get her away from this place that was both her home and her prison.

The third was fear. They wouldn't help her. Instead they killed her sisters and left her alone on a floor covered with their black blood.

And now she just realising that she's having her fourth emotion.

She is angry.

She didn't choose to be created like this. She didn't choose to be a copy of someone else, someone who's real while she isn't. She didn't choose to have her mind filled with images of friends who are actually her enemies, and enemies who see her as property to use as they please and then throw away. All she wanted was help to get away, to be free. She has that right, hasn't she? Clone or not, she will not be someone's possession, and she will not be chopped up like an animal on a butcher's bench.

It's already dark out, and her memories tell her she shouldn't be on the streets at night. She ignores them and keep walking, her anger fuelling her feet. First when a man steps into the street in front of her does she stop, and that is only so she doesn't have to run into him. He is tall and skinny, wearing a west and sporting a tattoo of a purple on one of his arms, and the girl who isn't April recognises him immediately. His name is Fong. And he isn't alone.

As two other men join him, smirking at her and closing their hands into fists, she experiences her fifth emotion since she first opened her eyes.

Glee.

Because she isn't April, and she can do things April can't.

The first man is down before he has the time to blink. The other two are faster, and now they are warned of what she can do. Fong dodges her punch and jabs her in the stomach, sending her back a few steps and making her gasp for breath. A foot catches her on the thigh and she staggers to the ground.

It feels good, this pain. It's hers and no one else's, and she is going to own it.

She lunges back to her feet with a roar, raining kicks and punches over the two men still standing. Fong covers his face with his hands, stumbles back and then falls fully when she plants her foot in his head.

The last man attracts her attention by putting a knife in her arm. It takes a moment for the pain to catch up to her, and then she does something she has never done before. She screams, screams so loudly her lungs might burst. The man stumbles back, staring at her with wide eyes. Black blood bubbles from the wound as she pulls the knife out, and his eyes grow even wider. The girl grips the knife tightly, liking the feeling of a weapon in her hand. He makes a low, strangled sound, eyes the black blood pouring down her arm and makes a run for it.

The girl stays where she is, knife still in hand, anger and adrenaline pumping through her veins. Everything hurts, but she embraces it. She drops the knife and puts her fingers on the wound on her upper arm. Pushes harder, fingers slipping in the black goo. Pain throbbing through her arm.

She is real.

_She is real_.

"Wow," a voice says from behind her, and she spins around.

A girl is standing there, watching vigilantly with her hands on her hips. Her hair is cropped short and black, and there is something ruthless over her face. She tilts her head to the left and smiles.

"You aren't April."


	2. The girl with a name

Karai took the girl home with her.

April has never been to Karai's, not voluntarily or as a prisoner, and the girl drinks in the surroundings, slowly turning around in a circle. She is ignoring the strangeness that this whole situation is, her friends trying to kill her, her enemy taking her in, in favour of simply creating her own memories. Step by step, piece by piece, she's building what other people have their whole life to work on.

Karai's room is, not very surprisingly, messy. There are clothes scattered on the floor and a multitude of things lying on top of each other on her writing desk; makeup, pencils, throwing stars, even some schoolwork. It obvious she hasn't lived there very long, though. The walls are a very not-Karai light blue colour, and the posters meant to cover them are still mostly lying rolled up on the floor. There is no closet, and the few garments that are not thrown across the room are all gathered in a large pile in a corner.

"So," Karai says from where she's sitting cross-legged on the bed. "You're a clone of the princess?"

The girl flinches. "Yeah, I'm a clone of the lovely little April. Aren't I pretty?" She snorts. "Of course, I can't actually be pretty. April is pretty. I'm just a copy."

Karai shrugs. "Who cares about pretty? You can defend yourself, that's for sure. Way better than that little miss high and mighty." She smirks. "Besides, she isn't really all that pretty."

"Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?"

"Take it however you want, Red."

The girl turns away from Karai, and suddenly she's facing April, staring back at her from a mirror with an ornate, black frame.

Her hair isn't tied up in its neat ponytail anymore, and there are still bruises covering most of her freckles, but there is no question about it; she is April.

"I'm curious," Karai continues, not picking up on the girl's melancholy at all. "If you're a clone, then how come you can fight better than her? And why would they even bother cloning her in the first place? I mean, she's worthless."

"They made some adjustments during the cloning process," the girl says quietly. "Adding some things to my knowledge and skills, for example. But they didn't find it necessary to let me know everything, like why they need her so much. Why bother? I'm just an experiment meant to throw away."

That rage she felt earlier is coming back, but she has a hard time directing it. She doesn't know if she's angry with the Kraang for making her what she is, or with April for being the exact same but having so much more.

"Why are you moping so about it? If they hadn't created you you wouldn't even exist. Who cares if you are a clone; at least you're alive."

Her anger keeps bubbling up, and suddenly there is someone to throw it at. She spins around and scowls at Karai, hands curling into fist at her sides.

"What do you mean why am I moping? I'm not human! There's someone out there who looks exactly like me, who thinks exactly like me. My personality isn't my own; it's just an imprint of hers!"

Heart pounding, quick intakes of air, limbs still aching from her fight earlier. Everything feels so human, exactly what April always felt like in her memories. A beating heart, working lungs. A brain taking everything in and evaluating it, turning it into emotions boiling through her body.

Moments like this nearly makes her forget that none of these are her sensations, her body. Just a copy.

Something like steel has crossed Karai's face, extinguishing the teasing boredom that harboured there before. She stands up and walks closer. The very room is holding it's breath, waiting for her words. The air quivers.

"Don't you dare act like I should be feeling sorry for you. You've got life, and feelings and thoughts and a working body, when you shouldn't even be here at all. If you ask me, that's pretty freaking lucky, no matter the reason you were created." She pokes the girl in the chest with a sharp finger. "Lots of people have it way worse than you. Lots of people are dead, or dying, and you're not. So man up or I'll throw you back on the street."

"But it isn't fair!" the girl screams. "How am I supposed to know what is real? How am I supposed to know that anything I think or do is based on my own thoughts and judgements and experiences, and not just a copy of what April would do?" She's crying now, big ugly tears rolling down her cheeks and dropping from her chin, falling to the floor like rain. She doesn't want to admit how much it hurts, and she doesn't want Karai to see her like this. She turns away, once again facing the mirror and her own tear-brimming eyes. "How am I supposed to be my own person?" she whispers.

She can see Karai's face soften in the mirror. "I'd say it's impossible for you to bee an exact copy of April, no matter how similar you are on the surface. You bleed black, don't you? April doesn't, that much I know." She smirks, and the girl is thrown back to a memory of Karai hitting and hitting April, taking her to the ground again and again.

She grimaces, forgetting for a moment that the pain she remembers isn't her own.

Karai tilts her head to the side and meets the girl's gaze in the mirror. "You know what? You aren't like her on the inside, so why not change you on the outside too?"

"What?" The girl turns around, but Karai has already put her attention elsewhere. She's digging through the mountain of stuff on her desk, sending a cascade of papers and books to the floor. After a moment she holds her hand in the air, a victorious grin on her lips.

"Aha!" She twirls the objects between her fingers before gripping it tightly. It's a knife, slightly curved and gleaming in the light. The girl still doesn't understand, and Karai rolls her eyes. "I'm cutting off your hair, silly."

"Oh." The girl's fingers touch a strand of her red hair. April had been saving it for years, wanting it to be long and luscious even though she deep down knew it wouldn't happen.

April had been saving it.

She lets her hand fall.

"Go at it," she says.

* * *

She's seated in front of the mirror and the floor around her is covered in red strands of hair. The girl staring back at her from the mirror looks as surprised as she is feeling.

Her hair is short, cropped off above her ears in a spiky style standing up and about in all directions. The girl in the mirror looks like someone tough and perky, someone who does what she wants when she wants.

She doesn't look like April.

"You know what you need?" Karai says, not looking up from her work, "a name. I cant keep calling you 'girl', it's messing up my head."

"I haven't even thought about it." The idea tickles her mind; her own name. The first step towards an identity. "Any suggestions?"

"You could keep up the whole named after months thing. How about June?"

"No," she says quickly. "I don't want my name to be based on April in any way; it'll be mine, not hers."

"Okay, then. Lisa? Emma? Hanna?"

"Those are awfully uncreative."

"Shut up, Red." Karai stops herself, tapping the tip of her knife at the girl's head. "What do you think about that? Red?"

She can't keep the smile back. "Still not very creative. But I like it. Red." She tastes the name, lets it roll over her tongue. She isn't April, the girl with a daddy issues and a tendency to get kidnapped. She is Red, the clone who bleeds black and survives where all her sisters dies.

And she will own it.

* * *

AN: Well then, the oneshot became a twoshot. Still no promises that I'll keep writing it though. I hope i kept Karai in character. It might be a litte weird that she decided to take the clone in out of nowhere, but i thought it kind of fitted her rebellious, impulsive nature. Besides, she and the Shredder have cooperated with the Kraang, who created Red.


	3. The girl with a friend

Red has a hard time differentiating one day from another. She wakes up every morning, not knowing if it's a Wednesday or a Sunday, or if it's even actually morning. There aren't really anything for her to do, no schoolwork to finish or social life to maintain, but she still keeps busy, catching up with all the things she should have had sixteen years to do.

To her surprise Karai seems to cling to her mundane activities just as much as Red does. They start out with the basic things. The Oroku family has no shortage in money, and Karai has no problem sharing it. By the time they're done shopping Red's feet ache, but her eyes sparkle. She has her own wardrobe now, and there isn't a single yellow garment in there. She has discovered that she is especially fond of purple, black and red, with the occasional pink accessory. Karai wrinkles her nose at the pink boots and the practically luminescent handbag, but shrugs and hands over the money.

"As long as you don't make me wear it", she had said, and then they bought ice cream.

They buy tiny packages of black hair dye and several multicolored hair extensions. The dye worked perfectly on the tips of Red's hair, making her look rebellious and stylish. The extensions had the opposite result. They had a good laugh about it, and then threw the horrible things away.

They stay up at night having movie marathons, watching all the things April hates and that Red have decided to love. Karai has a huge collection of Japanese horror movies, mixed up with some b-films from the 80's. The effects are horrible and the plots mostly nonexistent, but the more she watches the more Red finds herself wanting more.

When they have watched all of Karai's movies two times over, and downloaded some new ones, they start doing it _for real_. Red's hands trembled the first time she walked into the movie theatre. She didn't know why; it wasn't like the other movie were going to see through her façade and start screaming about alien invasion. They watched some thriller that left no real memory in Red's mind. She loved it, though. not as much for the movie as for the experience itself. She was doing things. _Real_ things. _People_ things. It made her feel giddy inside.

The one not so normal thing Red and Karai spend their time doing is ninjitsu. Red has a hard time imagining that as someting a typical sixteen year old girl does.

No one knows about Red's presence in the Foot headquartres, so they only use the practice areas when everone else is away. No mutants, no Foot Bots, and most definitely no Shredder. Karai might be accepting, but Red doesn't have as high hopes about her father. She has yet to meet him herself, but April's memories and Splinter's stories are still fresh in her mind.

Red is a good fighter. Karai is better. She likes the bruises she gets, though. They are the proof of actual pain and hard work, not at all like April's flimsy psychic powers that can not be either practiced nor controlled. Red has none of the sixth sense that makes April so special. She can't read minds or shove things with her mind, although she's quite good at physical shoving. Her extra clone strength makes sure of that.

* * *

Red doesn't know how much time has passed. It's dark out, and she and Karai have taken to the rooftops to watch the illuminated city from above. It's beautiful, but Red's growing weary of it. New York is the only real memory she has, and the past weeks' many movie marathons has left her longing for more.

"Could I ever come with you to Tokyo?" she asks, not looking at Karai.

"Tokyo? Why? Don't you like it here?"

Red grimaces. "I guess. But I don't want to stay here for too long. I want to see the world, you know. I figured Tokyo could be as good a place as any to start. Besides, it's your home, so I wouldn't have to be alone."

"It is rather awesome", Karai admits. "Lots cooler than here. No weird alien brains on the streets, no mutant turtles. Lots of weird people though." She flashes a smile. "We'll fit in perfectly."

Red laughs, but then stops herself hastily. "Why are you doing this?" she asks. She doesn't even know why she lets the words slip. Maybe it's the sudden prospect of an actual future that makes her forget what she's saying.

"Oh, you are such a sorry creature. It's not like I could just leave you on the streets." Karai taps a finger to her chin, pondering. "Pity, I guess."

Red turns to her, rage suddenly churning inside her. "No," she says. "_Give me the truth_."

Karai hesitates and drops her poker face. Red can see a mixture of fear and anger on her face, perfectly blended. People like Karai aren't used to having to voice their emotions. Then she gets a hold of herself and stashes away both the fear and the anger where no one can find it.

"I... it gets kind of lonely, being the only child of a vengeful crime lord." She laughs, but it is a bit too shrill. "I've never had a friend to whom I don't have to hide anything. It's... nice." She grimaces. "That's mushy enough. Want to go turtle hunting?"

They wander the city, hopping from rooftop to rooftop. Red has no hopes about finding the turtles tonight. They _are_ ninja, after all. But it doesn't matter. She can't remember the last time she was this happy. Was it that time Donnie rescued her father from the Kraang? Or when Leo helped her perfect a move she had been working on for weeks? Or possibly that time she teamed up with Mikey to play the perfect prank on Raph?

_No_. She pushes the images away. _Not my memories. They aren't real._

That settles it then. This is the happiest she has ever been.

One day she will travel to Tokyo with her friend, and they will go shopping, and watch ridiculously violent movies, and eat junk food, and then they will travel the world, raising hell wherever they go. First they'll just have to settle this whole business with the Hamatos.

Not tonight though. Tonight they are having fun.

At least that was her plan. The whole thing shatters beautifully when Karai spots a green shadow move on a neighbouring roof.

Some ninjas, getting spotted without even noticing it.

Red sighs, abandons her plans for the night, and unsheets the sword Karai loaned her earlier.

That's when she notices the red haired girl straining to keep up with the turtles, and her heart drops.

_April. _


End file.
